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Ultraviolet's 'piracy-curbing' digital locker service is shutting down

Its digital doors will close for good on 31 July

DIGITAL LOCKER SERVICE Ultraviolet, once hailed as Hollywood's solution to curbing online 'piracy', is shutting down later this year.

Ultraviolet, which was backed by the likes of Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures and Fox and currently boasts more than 30 million customers globally, will shut its digital doors on 31 July, Variety reported, and the plans have since been confirmed in an FAQ on the service's website.

"In the years since UltraViolet's launch, we've seen the emergence of services that provide expanded options for content collection and management independent of UltraViolet," the FAQ reads. "This and other market factors have led to the decision to discontinue UltraViolet."

Variety reports that Ultraviolet's biggest blow came courtesy of Disney, which rather than backing the platform, launched its own cloud locker service, dubbed Disney Movies Anywhere, which could be connected to digital retailers including iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play - unlike Ultraviolet.

The launch of Disney Movies Anywhere saw some of Ultraviolet's original backers jump ship; in 2018, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and Lionsgate stopped distributing their new releases as Ultraviolet titles.

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the consortium tasked with running Ultraviolet, explains that the shutdown should have little impact on users in the US, who are being advised to link their accounts to a retailer that supports UltraViolet films or download them.

"In most cases, your movies and TV shows will be available via the retailers linked to your UltraViolet Library at the time of UltraViolet shutdown," it explains. "Linking to additional retailers can maximize your access to your Library and help avoid potential disruption."

Here in Blighty, however, users will be limited to accessing content via Flixster, Pocket-Lint writes. Users should link their Ultraviolet libraries to Flixster via its mobile and desktop apps before the scheduled shutdown in six month's time. µ